Key Updates

• Ongoing hostilities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region impact displacement in the region: More than 62,000 Ethiopians have fled to Sudan due to the ongoing hostilities in the Tigray region.

• Low numbers of refugees and migrants arriving in Yemen along the Eastern Route: New arrivals of East Africans along the Eastern route remain low with only 5,113 new arrivals recorded in Yemen between January and March 2021. This represents an 82% decrease from the 27, 948 arrivals reported during the same period in 2020.

• Spontaneous returns from the Gulf to East Africa increase this quarter: 4,868 refugees and migrants were recorded to have returned from Yemen to East Africa this quarter (at least 4,559 arrivals to Djibouti and 309 to Somalia).

• Fire in migrant detention facility in Yemen claims lives of at least 60 migrants: At least 60 migrants (believed to all be Ethiopian) were killed in a fire that broke out at a detention facility in Sanaa. Migrants were protesting poor conditions at the facility when projectiles were fired into the center by Houthi rebels.

• Killings of Somalis in South Africa sparks protests: In February 2021, more than 200 protestors took to the streets in South Africa’s Port Elizabeth to protest the killing of 4 Somalis in alleged xenophobic attacks.